SWEDEN - AP3, the SEK196.1bn (€21.7bn) Swedish buffer fund Tredje AP-fonden, has appointed Aberdeen Property Investors to build a European real estate equity fund portfolio worth SEK2bn (€221m).

AP2 said: "The aim is, over a four-year period, to create a diversified portfolio that will generate favourable risk-adjusted returns. During this period AP3 expects to invest in excess of SEK 2 billion in around ten real estate funds."

AP3's head of alternative investments Bengt Hellström said: "The award of this contract to Aberdeen is part of our long-term strategy to diversify the risk in our real estate portfolio by increasing the weight of international real estate holdings.

"The aim is for international real estate eventually to account for about half of AP3's total property investments.

Aberdeen Property Investors Indirect Investment Management said the brief is its fifth segregated account for international indirect property investments and the first one with a Swedish client.   

The firm's managing director Anders Åström said: "We are very pleased to have been given this responsibility by AP3, a highly professional and innovative asset manager.

"We see this as a sign of increased interest for  international property investments among Swedish institutions. With this mandate from  AP3 we are further strengthening our leading position in the European market for indirect  property investments."

Elsewhere, Ulf Riese - the head of Handelsbanken Asset Management - has been appointed chief financial officer of Handelsbanken. He will take up this position on January 1.

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